is wanting to stimulate the innate germs to unfold themselves in new forms out of the ancient trunk.

We ought, namely, to consider here that, in that case, a special end is always superadded, which is in itself foreign to poetry. The epic and the dramatic poet desire at the same time to delight their auditors and spectators-i. e., to give them a moral pleasure; the gnomic poet wishes to instruct them, although he consents to present his admonition in a beautiful garb; all three aim at special objects and ends to which poetry must be subservient. Therefore, if poetry is to minister to these new ends, it must, long before, have been developed to a high degree, in its nearest and most peculiar style, and have created a beautiful form, which, when once perfected, may be easily applied to many other uses. If such a single branch of the old lyrical trunk, however, thus develops itself, then a more conscious, fixed art will appear in it; for, in that case, the aim is not to compose according to the impulse of the feelings generally, but to compose in a definite direction, and in that beautiful form which is alone conformable to it, so that the simple variable art of the lyric here divides into a number of more special and more fixed artificial forms. Just as the period at which a people passes over into the manifold tendencies of political existence, is the time when higher civilization first arises: so likewise the true poetry of art first arises at the transition of the lyrical song to the particular species of poetry. Nay, the ancient lyrical poetry itself may then, after a more fixed art has become the basis of all poetry, likewise renew its youth in new and more artificial forms; of which Indian lyrical poetry affords a striking example.

The three poetries of pure art-the epic, gnomic, and dramatic -when they develop themselves in any people from an original impulse, will, indeed, appear in precisely this order of succession as to time, since every one of them takes its rise in an intellectual tendency which cannot either attain or manifest its full strength, except in a definite time. Epic poetry will only flourish naturally at the end of the heroic age, with its wonderful achievements and sentiments; gnomic poetry will only arise, with intrinsic necessity, in the transition from the simpler popular life to the more complex legal political life, in which there is a greater need of the counsels of wisdom; but dramatic art is the latest which can arrive at perfection: for the genuine drama, as the highest summit of all poetry, combines lyric warmth and immediateness with epic revivification of the past, and gnomic wisdom, and—as in life everything, history, experience, and emotion, is indissolubly connected-thus, by the play of all the poetic powers, reproduces the perfect genuine life, and represents it in a higher, purer form.

It would be wrong, however, to assume that these poetries of art must, in every people not imitating another, develop themselves in the same manner and to the same degree of perfection, since history shows that none but the Greeks and Indians have followed, with original power, the whole career of poetry, in all its stages and tendencies, up to the summit. Many nations, on the other hand, have, indeed, advanced tolerably far on the course of poetry, nay, have even been on the point of exercising composition as higher art, and yet never attained, or even attempted, all kinds of artificial composition; very few ancient nations attained the perfect drama, and many overleapt the period for the development of epic poetry.

It is a common opinion, indeed, that epic poetry is the oldest and simplest form, both among the Greeks and in all nations. But, if epic poetry was, in certain nations, committed to writing at an earlier period than lyrical, it does not therefore follow that the latter arose, even as to its primary rudiments, later than the former; on the contrary, the earliest beginnings of lyrical poetry may have vanished, almost without leaving a trace, while epic poetry, which reached its highest culture in the heroic age, does not enter the full light of history until it has become very important. Thus the oldest lyrics of the Greeks may have been all lost, whereas, among the Indians, whose poetry has in other respects passed through a career very similar to that of the Greeks, they have, from particular causes, been preserved in the Vedas. But there are also nations which have continued utterly unacquainted with epic poetry, although none remain ignorant of poetry generally; nay, epic poetry may be wanting in nations whose poetry is, in other respects, very much developed and yet that would be impossible, if it really were the nearest kind of poetry.

The Semitic nations belong to this class; and without doubt it is, à priori, a remarkable phenomenon, that they are deficient in epic poetry in the same degree as the Indogermanic nations are distinguished for it. As nations of either race whose culture is, in other respects, radically different-Hebrews and Arabians, Greeks and Indians-agree in this independently, the primary cause of this great difference can only be sought in the fundamental diversity of the character of these two races, which could not help manifesting itself so strongly in epic poetry above all others, on account of its peculiar nature. For in it the above described conditions of all poetry mainly return again: a living thought stands alone in the poet's fancy, and, in this case, a thought which arises from a vivid recollection of the signal good or evil fortunes of a country or a hero, and which strikes a poet in the midst of the people which has experienced these fortunes.

But

But the thought, the truth of which the epic poet wishes to exhibit in narration, will be so sublime and so eternal, that it appears to him to reach up to heaven, to derive its origin there, and to retain its truth even there among the gods. Thus, for him, therefore, beside the traditional earthly history, there easily arises a higher divine history, which, as the mainspring and guide of the earthly one, runs parallel with its course; and the higher art of the epic poet will consist in this, that, suppressing his own feelings as much as possible in the treatment of his subject, he exhibits both the celestial and earthly truth of his fundamental thought by a tranquil, detailed narration, and thus tempers his enthusiasm by quietly and contemplatively entering into the deeds and concerns of his subject. Now this patient tranquillity and reserve of thought, this rigid restraint of poetical enthusiasm, this selfpossessed art, which, although embracing an ample subject, yet preserves distinctness and consistency, is as foreign to the Semitic, as it is near and easy to the Indogermanic nations. Suddenness of emotion and of act, intensity and vivacity of simple and impressible feelings, the highest tension and rapid collapse of the imagination-these are the peculiarities of the Semitic nations, which are lyrical poets by birth, and not epic poets. The epic poet, moreover, when he attempts to show his high thoughts fulfilled in the reality, is aided by the beautiful heroic idea of the union of the divinity with humanity, by a rich, developed, and yet, at the same time, pliable mythology; whereas the religion of the Semitic nations, and especially that of the Hebrews, was on the contrary very grave and austere, and their mythology very simple and slight, without leaving much room for poetic conception. Thus, then, the materials by the combination of which epic was formed among the Greeks and Indians poetical thoughts, narrative and tradition, and mythology-remained among the Hebrews rather separate beside each other, without living union. Some later psalms, lxxviii., cv., cvi., which attempt to clothe the old sublime history in a poetic dress, have rather sprung from limited didactic motives than from true epic feeling and it was the influence of the Zarathustric religion which first introduced more epic materials into poetry, as the book of Job, and still more the book of Tobit, shows; almost in the very same way as the epos remains an utter stranger to the ancient Arabians and genuine Muhammedans, but at once rises again among the Muhammedan Persians with energy and success.

:

1. Now the more this side of poetry was entirely wanting among the Hebrews, the higher did the simplest kind of all poetry, the lyric song, stand with them. In the heroic period of the nation, which extends to the reign of David, it still reigns quite alone

and

1

and in its full naturalness and strength. It is fruitless to search for the oldest rudiments of Hebrew poetry as to actual time; we evidently have not the smallest fragment belonging to the times anterior to Moses-except the little sword-song, Gen. iv. 19-24, which on that account is very remarkable-and in his time poetry at once appears in the same fundamental form which it ever afterwards retained. For the beginnings of poetry, like those of language itself, reach back into the remotest spaces of history, and cannot be externally followed up to their visible origin. Whenever an important and increasing nation emerges from the obscurity of history, we always find that, just as it has a peculiar already settled language, so also it brings with it the long ago fixed rudiments of poetic diction and art, nay, the entire firm basis of peculiar form, which of itself bears witness to long practice, and serves posterity as a levelled road. But we unquestionably possess some remains of contemporaneous composition, both of popular, as Num. xxi., and of sacred poetry, dedicated to the service of the new sanctuary, as Num. vi. 24-26; x. 35, 36. How much art a song of the early times before David may possess in the midst of its simplicity, is shown by the great public songs of victory, Ex. xv. ; Judg. v. ; the latter especially unites a really grand design with a regularly beautiful execution, and is a model of a genuine song of victory of nearly eight centuries before Pindar. How surprising it is to find these, perhaps the most ancient songs of the whole earth, at so remote a date already so perfect, that they supply the most brilliant and convincing proof that Israel possessed an aspiring culture at a very early period. The language here is still, however, uncommonly short and abrupt, more stiff and hard than soft and graceful, and rather indicates by brief hints than finishes its pictures minutely; the thoughts, too, have some stiffness and heaviness; indeed, throughout the song of Debora, together with the highhearted courage of faith, there also breathes that sanguinary and revengeful spirit which, in the interval between Moses and David, easily penetrated into the hearts of even the leaders of the people. Thus poetry makes indeed mighty efforts in those centuries, but does not yet attain its acme.

2. The same David, who as hero and king closed the external history of this period, inasmuch as he attained and secured the good which lay within the scope of the nation's aim during these centuries, was the first who also as poet reached the summit of the earliest appearance of poetry, as if to furnish a beautiful evidence of the close spiritual relationship between the genuine bard and the genuine sovereign. For David unites those two rare powers which

c Cf. Geschichte des Volkes Israel, i. 315.

are

are alone capable of producing the highest effects here. First, he possesses in an extraordinary degree the power, in all situations of his most agitated life, and notwithstanding all the hatred of men, of always collecting himself again in the God of Israel and in his love, and of returning to that love with increased fervency and purity after every danger and every error, so as always, throughout a long, stormy, and changeful life, to acquire a greater confidence in, and love of Jahve, and always to praise him more gloriously. But he possesses in no less degree the other wonderful power, of constantly expressing the depth and clearness of his emotions and thoughts in adequately sublime song. Now while these two powers so worked together in him throughout his whole life, that he who had most deeply experienced Jahve's ways, and had known his majesty as well as his love, also praised them most abundantly and beautifully, and constantly overflowed with the enthusiastic praise of the God of Israel as the great and true Saviour; he, in this, accomplished the true aim of genuine Israelitic poetry, since it, as has been shown above, had not any higher aim than that of adequately glorifying the sublime thoughts contained in the religion of Jahve. And in as far as this distinctive characteristic of ancient Hebrew poetry then manifested itself, in its perfect strength and beauty in David, in so far he raised lyrical poetry proximately, and, together with this chief part of Hebrew composition, the whole poetry of Israel, to its highest elevation. Hence he had, in the time of Amos (vi. 5), become proverbial as the only model of a bard, and was always regarded by posterity with increasing reverence. We must also notice, as a special peculiarity, that childlike cheerfulness as well as depth in the apprehension and description of natural objects and phenomena, which are displayed in such songs as Ps. xxix., xix., viii., cxliv. 12-14. The people of Israel became, in the afflictions of their later history, ever more and more estranged from such pure and free views; and all that we afterwards find of this sort in the book of Job, or in songs like Ps. lxv., civ., cannot, however glorious it be, be compared with those songs of David's time.

d

Thus then after David-since poetry could not aspire to a higher elevation in this direction-in the centuries down to the end of the Exile, there arises a new time for poetry. Lyrical poetry, indeed, is so little extinct that it awakens on every important occasion and in every extraordinary time; but its very choicest pieces do but at the utmost attain the Davidic elevation, and never surpass it. On the contrary, new kinds of poetry are now developed out of the perfection of natural poetry by the means of art, which has already

d The reader will perceive from this and other allusions that Von Ewald, in the greatly disputed question as to the age of the book of Job, concurs with those who assign it a comparatively late date. Ed.

acquired